


catch me i'm falling

by Mayari (Paradise_of_Mary_Jane)



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 13:05:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17550230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Paradise_of_Mary_Jane/pseuds/Mayari
Summary: the fall of Jughead Jones in ten parts.





	catch me i'm falling

i.

Jughead’s asexual.

he figures it out when he’s thirteen. finds a few articles on the internet about it, about not liking either girls or boys or whatever, and decides that the word fits him well enough so it means he can probably take it for himself. he tucks the thought in a distant corner of his mind almost immediately though, because his dad is drunk again and jellybean is crying again and mom is gone again and Jughead has more important shit to deal with.

he never brought it up with anyone because it didn’t seem to matter, and no one ever asked him about that kind of thing so he thinks it must be okay.

 

ii.

the first nights of being homeless was fine. it was just fine.

it wasn’t the first time Jughead’s spent sleeping under the stars. he’s done it a lot when he was a kid, with archie when archie was still into camping, and things were a lot better, and he was young and he still knew how to believe in stars that fell from the sky.

of course he had blankets and tents and adult supervision then, but Jughead figures it’s the same thing for the most part.

it wasn’t as if he wanted to leave. it was just that the trailer was too quiet without jellybean talking his ear off and his parents fighting. the house was so quiet that the silence pressed on his chest, pushing and pushing and pushing, shattering his ribcage, grabbing his heart and squeezing all the life out of it. the house was too quiet, so quiet it was painful. quiet until the times that the house was too loud. until the times his dad got back from the bar screaming his head off about one thing or the other.

and it wasn’t like he was a bad person or anything. he’s Jughead’s _dad_ and he knows the man loves him. it’s just that he’s been drinking a lot of whiskey for a long time now and a lot of whiskey makes people emotional and emotional for fp jones means either angry or pathetic and Jughead prefers angry to the other thing.

his dad never did anything to him he didn’t deserve, didn’t ask for. he’s good at that, good at sharp words and witty comebacks and talking back, and it gets his dad to pay attention to him instead of his own misery or mom and jellybean leaving or the fact that Jughead is really really sick of living in the trailer which was too quiet and too loud at the same time.

it was better when his dad’s angry. it’s simpler. so he makes him angry on purpose because he’s just a simple guy. but Jughead leaves anyway because simple doesn’t mean easy and he is so goddamn tired of being exhausted before he even opens his eyes, like his body was made of concrete and he was the foundation of a building that was rapidly crumbling to dust.

so when his dad ends up throwing a bottle at him, cutting up his forearm in the process, Jughead only freezes for a moment before he marches straight for the bathroom without a word. the first aid kid still had some stuff in it, thank god. he stitches himself up and cleans up the blood as best he could. he comes back to the living room, doesn’t look at his dad, just heads straight for his bedroom, and begins packing.

thing is, Jughead knows his dad hadn’t meant to do it, seen the horror in his eyes, seen the fear, and he gets it because he knows what it feels like to hurt the way his dad’s hurting and wanting to lash out at the world, it’s just… he was tired of everything hurting all the time inside and he can’t really handle things hurting on the outside too. so he packed some shirts and pants and underwear in his backpack, along with some toiletries and all the cash he’d saved up for a new video game, and nestled his laptop at the bottom, wrapped up in several sweaters.

then he leaves.

his dad tries to stop him. says, _please don’t._ says, _stay. i’m gonna do better i swear._

says, _where are you gonna stay? what are you gonna do?_

and Jughead just says, _i’ll figure it out, dad. i always do,_ and he doesn’t really understand why it comes out as bitter as it did but he knows he means every word.

and his dad doesn’t try to stop him anymore. and Jughead hates himself a little because some part of him still wanted him to. his arm is throbbing and his sleeves are still stained with blood. there’s still broken glass on the floor and Jughead doesn’t clean it up. he just walks out of the trailer and closes the door softly behind him and his dad doesn’t stop him.

that’s probably the part that hurts the most.

it was june and with months and months of summer left. there’s a warm breeze in the air and Jughead can see all the stars, can make out some of the constellations he and archie used to look for together.

he almost heads to archie’s but archie really does not need his family drama right now or at any other time. betty’s so not an option it’s laughable. he knows people at the southside who’d take him if he asked but that feels too much like surrender to that one force hounding on him since he was a little kid.

he heads for the drive-in instead and hopes for the best.

but leaving doesn’t really make him feel better, doesn’t really make him any less tired of anything. didn’t make anything hurt less. it makes writing harder, though. a lot harder. it’s too cramped and hot and loud to write it in the drive-in and he can’t concentrate in the park. he mostly writes at pop's. or tries to. it’s a lot more staring at blank pages and deleting things he liked before and hates now than actual writing. Jughead’s grateful that pop doesn’t ask why he’s there all day everyday while barely even ordering anything.

(sometimes pops brings him coffee and a big slice of pie anyway with only a quiet smile and a ruffle of his hair.

Jughead just nods, barely resisting the urge to curl in on himself, feeling a warmth spreading in his cheeks and a throbbing in his chest. he doesn’t say anything but he thinks pops understands anyway.)

some part of him still wants to run to archie and mr. andrews, like he was ten-years-old all over again and hearing his mom and dad scream at each other for the first time. except archie seems to have finally realized that Jughead might have been too right for the wrong side of the tracks but he’s also too wrong to be on the right side because archie’s been avoiding him for a while, not replying to his texts, not coming over to the trailer, not even noticing that Jughead doesn’t even live there anymore. and none of it’s a surprise. Jughead’s been expecting it since they were six because archie is about as all-american-boy it can get and there is just something fundamentally _not right_ about Jughead. it’s an inconvenient truth but that’s what Jughead’s good at and he’s never held back with archie on anything else so he doesn’t hold back here. he lets archie wander away, gets angry and spiteful when his dad gets fired, lets their friendship fizzle out like the last dying embers of warmth in Jughead’s chest.

then he wraps himself up in his jacket and pulls his hat on with a grimace. it hurts but it’s necessary. better to hurt yourself than have the world do it for you. he learned that lesson the hard way, unfortunately.

(he doesn’t look up at the sky to look for stars anymore.)

Jughead tries to write in his notebooks sometimes too but it makes him anxious, thinking of ink covering each line of paper, of page after page he’s wasting on something he’s not sure he’ll even finish, and how his salary from the drive-in is barely enough to get him fed let alone buy stuff like notebooks and pens, so he eventually stops.

he’s stopped doing a lot of things over the years. he tells himself he doesn’t mind and even believes it half the time.

he doesn’t even try to think of what he’s gonna do when the school year comes and he’s gonna need a whole lot more money time and space than what he currently has. he’s living minute to minute, second to second. counting each moment between heartbeats because it’s the only thing that gets it through the act of having to breathe.

archie sends him a text on the earliest mornings of july fourth, saying he couldn’t make it to the roadtrip they two of them have been planning since they were ten, and Jughead feels something in his chest crack and crumble and disappear into the summer breeze.

it feels a lot like whatever was left of his hope.

he doesn’t text back and it feels incredibly petty but he’s tired and really can’t bring himself to give a fuck. he looks across the train tracks and wonders what it would feel like to cross it and not look back.

he heads back to the drive-in and closes his eyes until he falls asleep in the middle of the day and buries whatever else in the past where it’s supposed to be. Jughead would call what he’s doing surviving except he hasn’t really felt alive in a really long time. he just pulls down his hat and shrugs and move on.

 

iii.

it’s the fourth of july and jason blossom is dead.

jason blossom is dead and Jughead all of a sudden feels more awake than he has a long time. he almost feels guilty but he sees too much of himself in the dead boy.

the one ugly thing in an otherwise pretty picture, the one stain, the one thing that will stay even though everyone wants to scrub it away. something people wished never happened. a boy who was too pale, too angry, too sharp. a boy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time, who got taken by the wrong things without a single say in the matter.

a boy who will never be alive again.

Jughead writes something he likes for the first time in a really, really long time and just keeps going and going and going. it’s too late when he realizes he’s writing something that’s gonna be long, that he’s writing a novel and realizes that this is a thing he wants to finish and that it’s a story that he actually _believes_ in.

Jughead hasn’t believed in anything in a long time. he doesn’t know what to do with it.

he doesn’t know what to do with the fact that he actually has a reason to stay.

 

iv

archie apologizes. Jughead accepts. they don’t say anything else.

things aren’t the same.

 

v.

the drive-in is sold off to someone he doesn’t know and he couldn’t save it. he summoned up all the anger he could to try and he couldn’t and it hurt and

he shrugs, packs up his things, and moves on. he’s gotten very good at doing that, lately.

the story keeps him going. there’s something about writing things down, putting the things he can never say into words, that is tangible in the way that nothing else is. his words are his own and he’s the only one who gets a say in how they’re used and what’s done with them.

he holds onto them because it’s the only thing he has left.

 

vi.

they’re in betty’s bedroom, flushed with victory at figuring something out like they’re some character from those books betty loved to read so much. they’re standing too close to each other, and betty leans forward and Jughead realizes too late what it means.

he jerks back, nearly tripping over himself. betty’s eyes widen with something like surprise and hurt and Jughead immediately stammers out an explanation, _i didn’t mean that--it’s not--it’s not you--it’s just i don’t do that kind of thing._

 _oh,_ is what betty says.

 _i don’t like kissing…_ and the air is unimaginably awkward and what he says sounds unbelievably childish and Jughead would really have any conversation other this.

 _so you’re gay_ ? betty ventures and Jughead says, _asexual and aromantic, actually._ and the two of them are quiet after that.

finally betty says, _i never thought…_ and doesn’t finish but he thinks he knows what she means. because there are ways that northsiders expect southsiders to act, things they’re supposed to be, and things they’re not supposed to be.

he’s not supposed to be a kid who knows himself in that way. he’s not supposed to not like sex because he’s Jughead the Guy From the Southside. there’s a lot of things he could be. straight, definitely, maybe gay, probably even bi, but not ace. definitely not ace. he was born on the wrong side of the tracks. he lives in the land of sex and drugs. where men are creeps and women are sluts, as alice cooper says with her eyes whenever she sees him existing anywhere near betty. pretty hard to imagine a kid who doesn’t immediately fall into what the place he was born in.

he stares at her coolly and betty flushes. she doesn’t apologize though she clearly wants to because she knows he really doesn’t want to hear it.

and they don’t say anything else after that.

 

vii.

living with the andrews is a little bit like being trapped in a dream and it drives him quietly crazy. it’s not archie or mr. andrews’ fault. most of it is just him.

he stays in archie’s bedroom whenever he’s not investigating jason blossom’s murder, typing away, typing and typing until the words start to blur together and he passes out from exhaustion or archie forces him to eat or sleep or go to school. he hasn’t said so to anyone but he’s stuck, thoughts in an endless loop that tastes a lot like obsession. he ends up writing the same thing over and over again:

_there’s a boy in a broken town and he was more broken than anyone else there._

_he tried to leave but the town is magic and keeps him there._

_the boy died and didn’t come back._

_the town holds the boy in its arms, keeps him, because it never lets anything go, not even the things it hates. especially not the dead._

_the boy rots in his grave. he cannot escape._

_in the town, there is a broken boy and he cannot be fixed. so he just breaks everything around him._

_the boy died. he was never really alive._

there’s a broken record in his head, the same words ramming against his skull over and over again until they’re the only thing he can think of. they take over his nightmares. he sees jason blossom’s face, pale, blue veins crawling up his neck, a bullet wound in his forehead, lips parted.

he wants to leave this behind, find another city where things are a fresh start and he breathes air that isn’t tainted with all the secrets of a broken town. where darkness shrouds him and violence follows him wherever he goes. he has a reputation he never wanted and is telling a lie he never wanted to have. he’s good with words but his words are no good in a place where everything has already settled.

he knows he’ll end up staying anywhere. it’s not like he has anywhere else to go. he’s stuck. writing the same thing over and over again, running in the same circles in the same town with the same people for the rest of his life.

 

viii.

one night, while they’re lying side by side on archie’s too small bed, archie says, _betty told me about…_ and Jughead knows what he means so he snaps, _that was none of her business._

 _i know,_ archie says. _...when did you know?_

_when i was thirteen._

_i didn’t know._

_it wasn’t any of your business, either._

_i’m sorry,_ archie says. Jughead is getting tired of this conversation, tired of the sad looks in archie’s eyes so he closes his eyes and wills himself to fall asleep. _not for you being… you know, but for not knowing. there’s a lot i don’t know about you. you didn’t even have a home and--some best friend am i._

and Jughead sighs. _stop with the self-pity, andrews. it’s not that big of a deal. it’s not important_

that makes archie tense for some reason. Jughead opens his eyes and there’s something like horror that’s tinged with a lot of sadness reflected in those green eyes and he doesn’t know what to do with it.

 _Jughead,_ archie says quietly, _you’re my best friend._ everything _about you is important._

and Jughead just presses his lips together and closes his eyes.

 

ix.

seeing his life laid out in front of him just to show how much of a fuck up he is and is meant to be hurts more than he thought it would and that’s the moment that he knows, deep in his bones, that this is the moment his fate is sealed and he closes his eyes in acceptance of what’s to come.

Jughead goes to the trailer and screams and screams and screams and after that it’s over. just over. nothing left to be said or done.

… and things get worse from there because all of a sudden jason blossom’s father murdered his son and his dad is innocent and not free and it just pushes him further and further and further into the place he spent his entire life denying and he wants to say, _enough._ wants to say, _i know now. i understand. it’s okay. i’m fine. i am what i am._

_i’m done fighting._

 

x.

the serpents come to the trailer late at night while he’s cleaning up with betty. they come with a dog called Hotdog and a leather jacket with a serpent embroidered onto it. the dog is theirs and the jacket’s supposed to be for Jughead.

he takes it, forces a smile on his face and can practically feel the disapproval radiating off of betty from the other side of the wall. he walks over to the serpents, grin in place, and lets them pat him on the back and welcome him into the fold. it’s not so much a shove as a warm caress of a gentle breeze that pushes him over the edge.

putting the jacket on feels like the last steps towards coming home after a long journey. it feels like falling down a cliff with the knowledge that no one is going to catch him and that no one ever will. it feels like acceptance and it feels like moving forward.

it feels like flying.

**Author's Note:**

> Jughead is aroace and literally no one can take that away from him. that's it. that's the reason for this fic. ~~also istg this is the last ace fic i'm gonna write~~
> 
> also the last line is a shameless paraphrase from next to normal. title is just a shameless quote.


End file.
